Page:Tom Beauling (1901).pdf/124

 in the street—and I dare not describe myself to you. Samson shorn of his locks was not so futile; Laocoön in the folds of the serpents was not so helpless; and Thersites, who was the ugliest man that ever came to Troy, was not so ugly. Alas! what has become of stalwart Beauling? Dear lady, I had to forego Bombay, and come by slow stages up to this hill station of Nuwara Elyia—you say it New-rail-ya—to be in the cool. This is the place where they grow the best tea in the world and make the worst It is a wonderful long valley, thousands of feet above the sea, covered with deep, shiny green tea and bright turf—for there are Englishmen here, and your English civilize with wateringcan and roller—and surrounded by tall hills, bristling with bamboo jungle and dark with keena trees. It was so wonderful coming up! You do it in a rattledy-da train, and at first you go through swamp lands and rice lands and wet green jungles of palm and villages of plantain and other jungles of palm and creepers and flowers. And the